The city of Fez is a fascinating place which offers many different kinds of photo opportunities. I took the photo of the tannery above largely because of the colours in this scene, but also as a reminder that turning animal hides into leather is not a straightforward task. I shall not pretend that I understand fully all the stages of the process – suffice it to say that it requires treatments with various chemical substances and dyes. The variety of different vessels in the photo gives some idea of the complexities involved.
The two shots below show the same place, photographed from slightly different vantage points and with different zoom-levels.
Below are a couple of photos of tannery workers performing different tasks.
What the photos cannot convey is the smell – absolutely nauseating, even from a fair distance. The fact that some of the treatments apparently used pigeon droppings as a key ingredient probably did not help matters!
